YouDo supports digital transformation at Forsyth Barr

How New Zealand’s iconic wealth management company continues to innovate, with YouDo as a trusted partner.

The financial services sector has seen a hectic decade of regulatory change, intensified competition, and shifting client expectations.

Yet Forsyth Barr has continued to grow, supported by a deliberate innovation strategy. 

Michael Daymond-King, who leads the Innovation team, ensures that the strategy balances two powerful forces: stability and change.

For nearly eight years, YouDo has helped Michael and his team to build and implement bespoke software, uplifting client experience, operations, and digital architecture.

We’re proud to be a trusted partner that works within Forsyth Barr’s world, while bringing the necessary outside perspective for digital transformation.

Successful projects across experience, operations, and infrastructure

For the Innovation team at Forsyth Barr, digital transformation is the natural continuation of their service to generations of New Zealanders.

Just as the car went from a luxury to an everyday tool, wealth management must evolve to serve everyone.

When Michael joined Forsyth Barr as Head of Innovation in 2018, he started the transformation journey by exploring the ‘why’ behind core processes. 

This helped him start to separate the cumbersome tasks from the valuable work.

“The key to digital transformation is recognising the legacy processes that only exist because that’s how it’s always been done.”

– Michael Daymond-King, Head of Innovation at Forsyth Barr

Creating a seamless onboarding experience

The first milestone, and the start of Forsyth Barr’s partnership with YouDo, was digitising the customer onboarding process…

Traditionally, Forsyth Barr’s onboarding process combined trust-building and due diligence with admin: handshakes, paperwork, discussions, and days of back-and-forth as documents were collected and processed.

Our discovery workshops examined a digital onboarding process as an opportunity to protect and develop on Forsyth Barr’s reputation, rather than just a compliance necessity.

“Trust begins well before someone signs up as an investor. Onboarding is simply administration. By making that process smooth and scalable, we gave new investors an experience that matched the trust they already felt.”

Working with Forsyth Barr’s business analysts, product owners, and the wider team, YouDo built a bespoke solution that took a days-long onboarding process down to as little as 15 minutes.

The solution paired an intuitive client portal with a compliant, auditable back end. This gave Forsyth Barr full KYC/AML coverage, but also clearer reporting and insights into new client relationships.

The shift has freed advisers to focus on client relationships rather than paperwork, eased operational bottlenecks, and prepared the business to scale with confidence. 

Building an integrated system to support fund management

With Forsyth Barr’s client base scaling rapidly, Michael saw opportunities for calculated and deliberate transformation in other critical areas of the business.

YouDo worked alongside the growing in-house capability to deliver bespoke solutions across fund administration management.

Complex and siloed processes were re-engineered into an integrated backbone for the management and coordination of funds and offers.

The resulting systems give wealth managers greater visibility, agility, and capacity to focus on providing the level of guidance Forsyth Barr is known for.

Our agile approach has enabled iterative development, where we can adjust and adapt to shifting priorities.

Partnering with YouDo: curiosity and safe-hands delivery

Michael insists that digital transformation requires an outside perspective.

His role requires resistance to institutional drift and the ability to keep a fresh lens, protecting a 90-year reputation while updating the ‘Heath Robinson’ systems that naturally accumulate in a business of this maturity.

Even with a robust and growing in-house team, Michael continues to partner with YouDo.

Our hybrid approach means that innovative, even experimental, projects can continue – at pace – while the team focuses on core operations.

Michael puts the success of our partnership down to YouDo’s ability to:

• Adapt to pace: waiting for internal regulatory reviews or accelerating delivery when opportunities arose.
• Navigate the grey: providing clarity in ambiguous situations and helping refine ideas into actionable features.
• Focus on results: supporting operations without overstepping boundaries, ensuring all solutions align with their broader strategic goals.

Innovation in any industry is complex and challenging, but particularly in finance and energy. That only makes curiosity, creativity, and flexibility more crucial.

Enduring and evolving together

Wealth management is a conservative practice. That may seem at odds with innovation.

But Forsyth Barr’s approach to innovation shows that stability and change are interconnected rather than opposing forces.

By modernising without losing sight of their legacy, the iconic institution has scaled deliberately, growing while protecting almost a century of trust in New Zealand.

For YouDo, the partnership demonstrates the impact of acting as an extension of the team, challenging assumptions, and enabling transformation that is both enduring and future-ready. 

We’re excited to keep building together.

Every business is different—but the need for trusted, adaptable support is universal.

Reach out to YouDo to see how we can collaborate on tailored solutions, streamlined ways of working, and create real momentum toward your goals.